


The Sound of the Universe Coming Back

by Shaitanah



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-01
Updated: 2011-02-01
Packaged: 2017-10-15 06:58:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/158244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shaitanah/pseuds/Shaitanah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She can’t promise him forever, but a fellow’s got to try. [post-Angel: After the Fall; AU from there - as in disregards the BtVS comics]</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sound of the Universe Coming Back

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel belong to Joss Whedon and lost of other people.

**THE SOUND OF THE UNIVERSE COMING BACK**

 

When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade, right? Except there is no such thing as free blood (or lunch; same thing for some), and life mostly tends to squeeze you like a lemon.

 

At least back in Beverly Hills he knew where he was standing.

 

Now, now is different. Back to basics, more or less. Back to the dark, empty backwater alleys where the Big Bad used to lurk. Except he has a soul now, has to abide by certain rules. Isn’t insane anymore, isn’t dead, isn’t a ghost, isn’t part of the team. Has no excuse. But everyone remembers. He was a hero to a group of refugees in hell – and now everyone remembers.

 

It doesn’t matter though, does it? The world is back to being what it should be. Strangely, he misses the Apocalypse; at least things were clear amidst all the chaos. He’s been through more than one, too. Knows how to handle himself in a crisis. Isn’t sure how to make lemonade, though.

 

He wouldn’t go after her now. Not even if some charitable hell dimension reject Blue Fairy worked her mojo on him and made him a real boy. (He had one of those at his side, pretty hellish, pretty rejected, very blue. Skipped off with another one from Angel’s ragtag band of little heroes to start on her own path of humanity and redemption. That’s why it makes no sense being bad anymore; they all end up in the same cold, dark place with no reward but the weight of the never-ending regrets. Bugger that.)

 

So where was he? Oh, right. Her. It’s always about her. Angel found the loophole. Found the place in that big bleeding heart of his for someone else. And that worked out just fine, except that it didn’t, because she kicked the bucket like every decent lady within half of the world of both of them would.

 

(Angel and Cordelia, really? he almost hears her asking. Yeah, right, bet Angel never mentioned that when he came sniffing around Sunyhell at the end of days, what with little Miss Higher Power being all comatose; and Angel is a sodding pro at coming up with lame excuses.)

 

Now, then. He did not go to her. He hoped she would drain out of him like Dru did, but love does not work that way. On some level, Drusilla is still there, etched into his heart in a pattern of the most painful and delightful memories. But he can talk about her. He _can’t_ – _won’t in a please-don’t-make-me way_ – talk about Buffy. The only time he did was in hell: Angel Junior asked him and for some reason Spike answered. I stole my Dad’s girl once too, the brat said. Made Spike like him even more.

 

(Angel has a kid? she blinks, and he almost laughs because _seriously_? But then he remembers the whole reality-altering whammy the evil lawyers had supposedly put on the world. After all, he too found out only after things had gone down the drain. The look on her face is worth it. Take that, Captain Forehead.)

 

Excuses, excuses… Maybe that’s why he is in a shoddy bar in the City of bleeding Angels, imagining a thousand and one scenarios of the future.

 

“So what’s yours?”

 

She sashays up to the counter and lowers herself on the stool next to him. He exhales slowly even though technically he doesn’t have to, and dares himself to look at her. She looks tired, but somewhat peaceful. He imagines her then, after the final battle with the First, when the whole town collapsed as he was told. She must have looked just as peaceful.

 

He would have been less surprised to meet the Blue Fairy now. But he’s not drunk enough.

 

“Andrew?” he asks in a deliberately non-interrogative tone. Who else would blabber out his big secret?

 

Buffy’s lips twitch as if his assumption is funny. She smiles with bitter restraint, like a Reaper come to collect a debt.

 

“Angel.”

 

Because that makes so much sense. Broodypants won’t tell her about Cordelia and Connor, but he, what, picks up the phone when the world is all Apocalypse’d-out and delivers the one line that has a solid chance of destroying him and Buffy for good?

 

“That git, huh?” Spike lights up a cigarette. “He outsouls me even here.”

 

“Yeah, because this is a competition and I’m the prize.”

 

“Collected by the Immortal of all people.”

 

She flashes him a strange look. “Do you believe everything you’re told?”

 

“I saw you with my own two eyes firing up the dancefloor in Rome.” So maybe he didn’t see her face, just the hair, and maybe the Immortal himself wasn’t exactly there, but he remembers Andrew’s words about cuddling – and what are they but Andrew’s words only?

 

She looks at him like a patient teacher would look at a slow-witted pupil. “Do you believe _everything_ you’re told?”

 

“Not true then?” Spike prods self-consciously.

 

She keeps watching him. He pushes a half-full plate of complimentary peanuts in her general direction and concentrates on the rows of coloured-glass bottles behind the counter. This is awkward.

 

“If I did tell you I was back,” he says slowly, carefully, “I would have to ask you about that thing you told me before I went out all superhero-y, flames and all.”

 

This is the one conversation they wouldn’t want to be having. They are supposed to be wiser now, they are supposed to have moved on – but she fixes him with that shiny, expectant gaze of hers, and he is all but ready to collapse on his knees and place his head on her lap and stay like that until another sodding Apocalypse comes crashing through the roof.

 

“I can’t promise you anything,” she says quietly. “This is not a forever kind of a deal. I’m not a forever kind of a girl. I’ve already squandered my forevers.”

 

Then go, he wants to tell her. Leave me. Take the heart with you, while you’re at it. You can have the soul too.

 

She leans into him, and there’s a kiss, that’s definitely a kiss, albeit he barely feels it, a slight stroke of her lips over his. He tries to tell by it if there is love. Maybe there isn’t, but it feels like she doesn’t want to lose him again.

 

“Yeah, well, don’t flatter yourself, Slayer,” he mutters in a very dry voice. “I’m in the world-saving business too. Big damn hero now. S’gonna be a very short forever, innit?”

 

For a start.

 

She gets up. Walks out. Doesn’t have to issue an invitation: he would follow her into the sunlight if he had to.

 

 _January 31–February 1, 2010_


End file.
